Collagen-containing wound dressings are known from practice in various embodiments. For example, in particular non-woven fabric type wound dressings made of a collagen are known, which are produced from a suspension of a native collagen. In contrast to implants made from a chemically dissolved collagen, the former generally have the advantage of exhibiting good flexibility and tear resistance.
Furthermore, wound dressings are available which are produced from donor skin, in particular of animal origin. In particular split-skin graft of porcine origin is used for this purpose, which is prepared by wet-chemical treatment, in particular by acidification and oxidative treatment, in such a manner that essentially a sterile collagen scaffold is remaining. Such wound dressings are in particular used for fire injuries.
A drawback of such known implants is that they are not geometrically stable in the bent state, that is to say depending on the location of application the implant may tend to roll off from the wound or sink into a defect site which is covered by the implant, which is undesirable.
This in particular concerns the use of such collagen implants in the jaw region, where narrow bending radii are needed and the collagen implants are often used to prevent ingrowth of soft tissue into a defect site of a bone, which has previously been filled with a bone graft material.